Real-time conversational media sessions, such as conversational telephony services, for example, are known in the art. Conversational media sessions provide bidirectional real-time transfer of motion video, voice, text and other data and various combinations thereof between users at two or more locations. Conversational media services are described, for example, by a variety of standards, such as the IETF's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) family of standards, and the ITU-T H.323 family of standards. Contemporary conversational media services include for example, VoIP (Voice over IP) also referred to as IP-Telephony, video telephony, and real-time text telephony.
Conversational media services over packet switched networks, in particular IP (Internet Protocol) networks, present users and organizations with new challenges, including the need to handle unwanted sessions and unwanted data within sessions. Unwanted sessions can become an annoyance to users and organizations and may potentially compromise security, particularly when the user or the organization is subject to a bulk of unwanted sessions. Due to the low cost of generating a mass of unwanted calls (or sessions) over packet data networks (no payment per session duration or per communication line, dedicated and expensive hardware is not required), such unwanted sessions are expected to become widespread unless effective solutions are devised.